Popular

October 7, 2005

Hurricanes cause Peru Amazon waters to fall-report

by Sam Savage

LIMA, Peru (Reuters) - Water levels along Peru's stretch of
the Amazon river have fallen to 35-year lows following a series
of recent hurricanes along U.S. and Mexican coasts and years of
deforestation in the Amazon jungle, Peru's National
Meteorological Service, SENAMHI, said.

According to studies at Peru's main Amazon jungle town,
Iquitos, water volumes in October have fallen to 423,700 cubic
feet a second from a normal average of 882,866 cubic feet a
second, SENAMHI told daily newspaper Peru.21 on Friday.

Due to a public holiday in Peru on Friday, SENAMHI was not
available for comment.

"Water levels in the Amazon river (in Peru) have reached a
35-year low in the past few days ... it's causing problems with
river transport," said Juan Arboleda, a scientist at SENAMHI.

Iquitos is a major port on the Amazon and river travel is
the main form of regional transport.

"Because of the hurricanes in the northern hemisphere, it
hasn't rained in the jungle since August. The high rate of
deforestation is also having an effect," said climate
specialist Ena Jaimes at SENAMHI.

Many scientists believe hurricanes thousands of miles away
affect weather in the Amazon because rising air in the north
Atlantic, which fuels the storms, causes the air above the
Amazon to descend, preventing cloud formation and rainfall.

But some meteorologists discount a link between hurricanes
in the Gulf of Mexico and drought in the Amazon.

According to the Brazilian government's National Institute
of Meteorology, dry weather in the Amazon is linked to warmer
Pacific Ocean surface temperatures, which changes rainfall
patterns.

Since August, several intense hurricanes have hit the Gulf
of Mexico, including Hurricane Katrina, which killed about
1,200 people in the low-lying U.S. city of New Orleans and
surrounding states. Flooding caused by torrential rains from
Hurricane Stan has killed more than 240 people in southern
Mexico and Central America.

Peru's Amazon jungle area has lost 25 million acres to
deforestation due to farming and drug trafficking in recent
years, according to private studies.

Deforestation contributes to droughts because cutting down
trees reduces moisture in the air, increasing sunlight
penetration onto land. It also prevents land and rivers from
holding rain when it comes, causing excessive runoff and
preventing the water table from increasing reserves.

Some 4,075 miles long, the Amazon, which has its source in
southern Peru, threads across northern Brazil and discharges in
the Atlantic Ocean.